The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany / With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years

by C. Edmund Maurice

ROBERT BLUM.

Blum was as successful with his colleagues as with the crowd; and the Town Council now demanded from the King the dismissal of his Ministers, the meeting of the Assembly, and freedom of the Press. The King tried to resist the last of these three proposals, pleading his duty to the Bund. But even the Bundestag had felt the spirit of the times; and, on March 1, had passed a resolution giving leave to every Government to abolish the censorship of the Press. The King seemed to yield, and promised to fulfil all that was wished; but the reactionary party in Dresden had become alarmed at the action of the men of Leipzig; and so, on March 11, when the men of Leipzig supposed that all was granted, General von Carlowitz entered their city at the head of a strong force, and demanded that the Town Council should abstain from exciting speeches; that the Elocution Union should give up all political discussion; that the processions of people should cease; and, above all, that the march from Leipzig to Dresden, which was believed to be then intended, should be given up. These demands were met by Blum with an indignant protest. "Five men," said he, "who manage the army cannot understand that, though their bullets may kill men, they cannot make a single hole in the idea that rules the world." The Town Councillors of Leipzig were equally firm. Carlowitz abandoned his attempt as hopeless; and on March 13 the King summoned a Liberal Ministry, who abolished the censorship of the Press, granted publicity of legal proceedings, trial by jury, and a wider basis for the Saxon parliament, and promised to assist in the reform of the Bund.

In the meantime the success of the French Revolution had awakened new hopes in Vienna. Soon after the arrival of the news, a placard appeared on one of the city gates bearing the words, "In a month Prince Metternich will be overthrown! Long live Constitutional Austria!" Metternich himself was greatly alarmed, and began to listen to proposals for extending the power of the Lower Austrian Estates. Yet he still hoped by talking over and discussing these matters to delay the executions of reforms till a more favourable turn in affairs should render them either harmless or unnecessary.

But great as was the alarm caused by the South German risings, and great as were the hopes which they kindled in the Viennese, the word which was to give definiteness and importance to the impulses which were stirring in Vienna could not come from Bavaria or Saxony. Much as they might wish to connect themselves with a German movement, the Viennese could not get rid of the fact that they were, for the present, bound up with a different political system. Nor was it wholly clear that the German movement was as yet completely successful. The King of Prussia seemed to be meditating a reactionary policy, and had even threatened to despatch troops to put down the Saxon Liberals; and the King of Hanover also was disposed to resist the movement for a German parliament. It was from a country more closely bound up with the Viennese Government, and yet enjoying traditions of more deeply rooted liberty, that the utterance was to come which was eventually to rouse the Viennese to action.

The readiness of the nobles to accept the purely verbal concession offered by Metternich in the matter of the "Administrators" had shown Kossuth that there could be no further peace. But he still knew how and when to strike the blow; and it was not by armed insurrection so much as by the declaration of a policy that he shook the rule of Metternich. On March 3 a Conservative member of the Presburg Assembly brought forward a motion for inquiry into the Austrian bank-notes. Kossuth answered that the confusion in the affairs of Austrian commerce produced an evil effect on Hungarian finances; and he showed the need of an independent finance ministry for Hungary. Then he went on to point out that this same confusion extended to other parts of the monarchy. "The actual cause of the breaking up of peace in the monarchy, and of all the evils which may possibly follow from it, lies in the system of Government." He admitted that it was hard for those who had been brought up under this system to consent to its destruction. "But," he went on, "the People lasts for ever, and we wish also that the Country of the People should last for ever. For ever too should last the splendour of that Dynasty whom we reckon as our rulers. In a few days the men of the past will descend into their graves; but for that scion of the House of Hapsburg who excites such great hopes, for the Archduke Francis Joseph, who at his first coming forward earned the love of the nation,—for him there waits the inheritance of a splendid throne which derives its strength from freedom. Towards a Dynasty which bases itself on the freedoms of its Peoples enthusiasm will always be roused; for it is only the freeman who can be faithful from his heart; for a bureaucracy there can be no enthusiasm." He then urged that the future of the Dynasty depended on the hearty union between the nations which lived under it. "This union," he said, "can only be brought about by respecting the nationalities, and by that bond of Constitutionalism which can produce a kindred feeling. The bureau and the bayonet are miserable bonds." He then went on to apologize for not examining the difficulties between Hungary and Croatia. The solution of the difficulties of the Empire would, he held, solve the Croatian question too. If it did not, he promised to consider that question with sympathy, and examine it in all its details. He concluded by proposing an address to the Emperor which should point out that it was the want of Constitutional life in the whole Empire which hindered the progress of Hungary; and that, while an independent Government and a separate responsible Ministry were absolutely essential to Hungary, it was also necessary that the Emperor should surround his throne, in all matters of Government, with such Constitutional arrangements as were indispensably demanded by the needs of the time.

This utterance has been called the Baptismal speech of the Revolution. Coming as it did directly after the news of the French Revolution, it gave a definiteness to the growing demands for freedom; but it did more than this. Metternich had cherished a growing hope that the demand for Constitutional Government in Vienna might be gradually used to crush out the independent position of Hungary, by absorbing the Hungarians in a common Austrian parliament; and he had looked upon the Croatian question as a means for still further weakening the power of the Hungarian Diet. Kossuth's speech struck a blow at these hopes by declaring that freedom for any part of the Empire could only be obtained by working for the freedom of the whole; he swept aside for the moment those national and provincial jealousies which were the great strength of the Austrian despotism, and appealed to all the Liberals of the Empire to unite against the system which was oppressing them all. Had Kossuth remained true to the faith which he proclaimed in this speech, it is within the limits of probability that the whole Revolution of 1848-9 might have had a different result.

The Hungarian Chancellor, Mailath, was so alarmed at Kossuth's speech that he hindered the setting out of the deputation which was to have presented the address to the Emperor. But he could not prevent the speech from producing its effect. Although Presburg was only six hours' journey from Vienna, the route had been made so difficult that the news of anything done in the Hungarian Diet had hitherto reached Vienna in a very roundabout manner, and had sometimes been a week on its way. The news of this speech, however, arrived on the very next day; and Kossuth's friend Pulszky immediately translated it into German, and circulated it among the Viennese. A rumour of its contents had spread before the actual speech. It was said that Kossuth had declared war against the system of Government, and that he had said State bankruptcy was inevitable. But, as the news became more definite, the minds of the Viennese fixed upon two points: the denunciation of the men of the past, and the demand for a Constitution for Austria. So alarmed did the Government become at the effect of this speech, that they undertook to answer it in an official paper. The writer of this answer called attention to the terrible scenes which he said were being enacted in Paris, which proved, according to him, that the only safety for the governed was in rallying round the Government. This utterance naturally excited only contempt and disgust; and the ever-arriving news of new Constitutions granted in Germany swelled the enthusiasm which had been roused by Kossuth's speech.

The movement still centred in the professors of the University. On March 1 Dr. Löhner had proposed, at one of the meetings of the Reading and Debating Society, that negotiations should be opened with the Estates; and that they should be urged to declare their Assembly permanent, the country in danger, and Metternich a public enemy. This proposal marked a definite step in Constitutional progress. The Estates of Lower Austria, which met in Vienna, had, indeed, from time to time, expressed their opinions on certain public grievances; but these opinions had been generally disregarded by Francis and Metternich; and, though the latter had of late talked of enlarging the powers of the Estates, he had evidently intended such words partly as mere talk, in order to delay any efficient action, and partly as a bid against the concessions which had been made by the King of Prussia. That the leaders of a popular movement should suggest an appeal to the Estates of Lower Austria was, therefore, an unexpected sign of a desire to find any legal centre for action, however weak in power, and however aristocratic in composition, that centre might be.

Dr. Löhner's proposal, however, does not seem to have been generally adopted; and, instead of the suggested appeal to the Estates, a programme of eleven points was circulated by the Debating Society. When we consider that the Revolution broke out in less than a fortnight after this petition, we cannot but be struck with the extreme moderation of the demands now made. Most of the eleven points were concerned with proposals for the removal either of forms of corruption, or of restraints on personal liberty, and they were chiefly directed against those interferences with the life and teaching of the Universities which were causing so much bitterness in Vienna. Such demands for Constitutional reforms as were contained in this programme were certainly not of an alarming character. The petitioners asked that the right of election to the Assembly of Estates should be extended to citizens and peasants; that the deliberative powers of the Estates should be enlarged; and that the whole Empire should be represented in an Assembly, for which, however, the petitioners only asked a consultative power. Perhaps the three demands in this petition which would have excited the widest sympathy were those in favour of the universal arming of the people, the universal right of petition, and the abolition of the censorship. The expression of desire for reform now became much more general, and even some members of the Estates prepared an appeal to their colleagues against the bureaucratic system. But the character and tone of the utterances of these new reformers somewhat weakened the effect which had been produced by the bolder complaints of the earlier leaders of the movement; for, while the students of the University and some of their professors still showed a desire for bold and independent action, the merchants caught eagerly at the sympathy of the Archduke Francis Charles, while the booksellers addressed to the Emperor a petition in which servility passes into blasphemy.